


Companions in Many Journeys

by 2Nienna2, senalishia



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Anxiety Attack(s), Asexual Character, Birds, Character Study, Coming of Age, Exploration, F/M, Introspection, Nerdanel and Fëanor are (the elven equivalent of) fifteen, TRSB19, Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2019, Written from Personal Experience, Years of the Trees, lots of emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 04:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20383444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2Nienna2/pseuds/2Nienna2, https://archiveofourown.org/users/senalishia/pseuds/senalishia
Summary: Fëanáro and Nerdanel meet, and quickly grow close. They travel along the coast of Aman to watch the cranes take off across the sea. They learn about themselves (and each other) along the way.“After all, if you could fly beyond all borders, wouldn’t you? If you could see everything, be everything?”





	Companions in Many Journeys

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang. The beautiful artwork is Senalishia’s. I cannot thank them enough for their collaboration! I never could have done it without them.
> 
> Any remaining mistakes are my own.

Fëanáro stepped out into the bright day. He finally had some time off, and he intended to use it. He walked out of the city and into the dunes.

As Fëanáro climbed up a dune, he tripped. The air whooshed around him as he fell face-first into the sand. He was beginning to pull himself out when a strong hand grabbed hold of him. Fëanáro looked up to see a young woman who looked about his age. She had warm brown skin and dark hair (although not as dark as his own.) She helped him up and they both stood atop the sand dune. He just stared at her for a moment as utterly in a daze. The young woman looked Fëanáro in the eye as she said, “Hello! I’m Nerdanel.”

“I am Fëanáro,” he responded. He paused for a moment before saying, “Thank you.  
What do you like to do out here? I’ve never seen anyone else before.”

Nerdanel said, “I enjoy watching the nature, the plants and animals. They all seem to have stories. Like... the little insects buzzing about seemingly in another world, entirely different from our own, yet within our own.” Her face started to glow with excitement. “If you look closely enough and for long enough your vision almost seems to shift to theirs. It’s an amazing feeling! There is so much to explore right here.”

Fëanáro nodded. “I’m always wanting to explore beyond just what’s here. There’s so much I’ve never seen, so much nobody has seen! But you are right that in every little thing there are endless variations, that maybe sometimes I forget about.

In truth, often I come out here because I just want to move and move and not have to stop. Will you walk with me?”

Nerdanel said, “I would be happy to.”

They continued walking farther away from the city. It was a hot day. The heat seemed to seep in not just through their clothing but through their skin itself, settling deep in their cores. They were surrounded by its embrace.

Fëanáro actually liked the heat. It’s unabating presence was comforting.

Fëanáro stopped and pointed at a bird in the distance. He watched it fly towards the water in a beautiful swooping motion. Soon, others joined with it, flying together until they were out of sight. Fëanáro and Nerdanel stared for a moment, and then turned back towards the dunes.

The wind picked up into a gentle, cooling breeze. Nerdanel and Fëanáro started walking towards a larger dune. Fëanáro lazily kicked a stick around as they walked. There was a pool of water below the looming dune. Fëanáro reached into the water and covered his face and hair in order to cool off. Nerdanel did the same.

Then, they began climbing.  
They finally reached the top and looked out at the world around them. As far as Fëanáro could tell, the two of them were alone in empty hills. He knew it wasn’t true of course, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of wide open emptiness surrounding them.

He was suddenly overcome by discomfort and dread. A sense of impending doom was drowning him. His breathing grew fast and heavy; His stomach heaved back and forth.  
He seemed to be quivering in his heart and in his throat. He wanted to scream, to cry, to contort himself all at the same time.  
And yet he couldn’t pull himself fast enough. He couldn’t think of anything. He couldn’t do anything. He was trapped. So utterly out  
of  
control.

In the haze he looked back at Nerdanel, forcing his mind to her flowing warmth and everyday aliveness. Slowly, he was calmed back into the moment. His breathing slowed, and he knew that it had passed. His body was still shaky, although he did his best to hide it. He tried not to examine the experience too closely, for fear it would begin again.

She had her arm on him now, and was staring at him with an intensity he somehow knew was only fascinated, not mocking or malevolent.

She said, “Are you alright?”

Fëanáro was doing his best to compose himself. He said, “...Yes. I just was… afraid for a moment. I’m okay now. I lost track of time a little bit, and I do think I have to go home soon for rhetoric, but would you be interested in going hiking with me again? If my father allows it, I’ve been wanting to follow the birds as far as I can, if you’d like to come with me.

“I would love to,” said Nerdanel.

  
—————————————————————

Fëanáro walked home. He was embarrassed that Nerdanel had seen his fear, but she had been so understanding and kind. She hadn’t laughed at him like his brothers or made a big deal out of it like his father. He couldn’t wait to see her again. Nerdanel seemed to understand him, in a way that few others ever had. He drank it in, filled with a pure joy and excitement unlike anything he’d ever known.

Tirion was crowded today. The streets were bustling with people selling goods, people relaxing, and people hurrying from place to place. Many of them recognized him and cried out in greeting.  
Fëanáro hated it. He kept his head down and hurried to his father’s house.

When he got home, his teacher was already waiting, tapping his foot impatiently.

This was the third time in a row that Fëanáro had been late, as he had a tendency to lose track of time. Fëanáro was sure he’d get a severe talking to, something along the lines of, “I don’t understand why someone as smart as you can’t put a little effort into respecting other people’s time and energy!”  
It was a familiar argument.

Fëanáro tried his best to pay attention, but his mind kept wandering back to Nerdanel. She wasn’t beautiful, at least not in the usual sense, but there was something about her that made you take a second glance. She was strong, that much was clear, and she had a look in her eyes that suggested constant quiet awareness, always looking out. Normally, such a look would unnerve Fëanáro, but in Nerdanel it only made him want to look deeper. As the teacher asked him a question, he jolted back to the present.

  
—————————————————————

Nerdanel woke with a lovely feeling. She had been having an amazing dream, and she just had to get it all down. There had been a flower at the bottom of a waterfall, made out of a material she couldn’t quite describe. It was something like glass mixed with hard candy sugars strung together, but not quite. It was beautiful. She wanted to try to recreate it, but wasn’t sure where to begin. She thought she might ask Fëanáro for suggestions, as she would get to see him tomorrow.

Nerdanel had been seeing Fëanáro a lot in the weeks since she first came across him in the sand dunes. They had walked in the hills together, and on the beach, and just about anywhere that wasn’t in the city. They had decided to go on another trip together. She had talked with her father, and he had talked with his, and blessedly they’d both agreed.

Nerdanel was packing her bag, as she expected they’d be traveling for at least a few weeks. She brought her notebook (her most prized possession) as well as a little piece of clay that wouldn’t dry, a couple of poems, a book on birds, a few bags of food, a blanket, a pillow, and lots and lots of water.

The plan she and Fëanáro had come up with was to meet on the eastern edge of Tirion and walk along the water, following the birds all the way to Araman, or as far as they could manage. Nerdanel has seen them fly off in that direction every summer, but neither she nor Fëanáro knew where, or better yet if they stopped. In fact, she wasn’t sure if anyone knew, if anyone had ever bothered to look. She was excited to find out.

In truth, she was also excited to spend more time with Fëanáro. Just the thought of it filled her with anticipation, though it had only been a few days since they last met.

She went to the kitchen, where she dropped eggs in boiling water. Her father was massaging kale leaves for a salad, and her mother was scribbling something on a notepad before she turned to set the table. When all the food was done, Nerdanel sat down in her chair and started to eat. She gazed into the distance, distracted. This was unusual enough that her father asked, “Why are you so preoccupied?”  
She didn’t know how to reply.

Afterwards, she headed outside. It had thankfully cooled off a bit. She sat under a tree and watched the clouds cover more and more of the sky. It looked likely to rain soon. She would go to classes in a couple of hours, but she treasured the time to herself. There would be a break starting tomorrow, which was how she and Fëanáro had gotten their parents to agree. As excited as she was for their upcoming journey, it made her private time all the more precious.

Nerdanel began to sketch the flower from her dream in her notebook, but she only became more and more annoyed. No matter how hard she tried, it looked nothing like how it should. She hated when this happened. This was the double edged sword of creative inspiration. You have the perfect image in your head, and yet you can’t recreate it no matter how hard you try. No matter how good your finished product supposedly is, nothing comes close to the ideal that fills your mind, the ideal that no one else can see. You try it again, this way, that way, and eventually you get something, but you’re always searching for more, for the elusive feeling that first captured your imagination.

This was why she usually stuck to things that she could see clearly in front of her, things that everyone could see. Things she could make everyone see differently.

Nerdanel gave up for the time being on drawing the flower, and thought about tomorrow. It would be the farthest she had ever traveled, and certainly the farthest she had ever traveled with another person. Maybe even the most consecutive time she had ever spent with another person. She was usually rather solitary, but Fëanáro seemed… made of the same substance somehow.

Large raindrops started trickling from the sky, gently, slowly, unevenly placed. Nerdanel inched closer into the tree’s protection. Already the grass was getting covered in clear shiny wetness, and some of the branches over her head were dripping. She breathed in deeply. She loved the smell of rain more than anything else in this world. After a few more minutes, the rain began to fall faster, harder, filling more and more of the sky. Nerdanel begrudgingly packed up and went inside.

  
—————————————————————

Fëanáro couldn’t sleep that night.  
Normally, he loved the time in the depths of night, when the world was still and his body took on an unnatural weight, a filling up of space beyond its means, and yet a floatiness. On nights like these he felt his awareness split into two or more places at once, and thoughts came without conscious effort, somehow removed from him. It was like peeling back the veil from himself.

But tonight it was not his by choice, and so he resented it. Tonight he only felt himself taking up too much space. His mind kept wandering to his mother, who he׳d never even known. And yet her influence was marked on all parts of his life, so that he could almost see the monuments and scattered fingerprints, to something he would never truly understand.

Sometimes his father refused to see him for days, because it reminded him too much of her death. And sometimes he made Fëanáro feel like he had to retreat deep within his calculated words, or else risk having everything fall apart beneath him. The worst was when Fëanáro was expected to be okay, and to be okay with comfort, for things to be normal, when they obviously weren’t.

Yet his father cared so much about him that it hurt, the depth of Finwë’s love. Fëanáro too, loved his father with a depth he couldn’t really explain. Despite the complications, they took care of each other. Sometimes it felt like just the two of them, alone in all the world.

His father was kind, and fun. They would talk together, and when he was younger they had played for hours. His father would take him to amazing places, and let him get lost in thought, alone together in wonder. Finwë was so passionate that Fëanáro knew he was cut from the same cloth. Fëanáro understood Finwë better than anyone. He knew his father so well that sometimes he got the feeling they were extensions of each other’s consciousnesses .

(Finwë was powerful. He was almost too persuasive for his own good. He never said anything half-heartedly, each thought from his mouth was forceful. A simple sentence would send everyone scurrying to obey his will. No one understood this better than his own family.)

It scared Fëanáro more than almost anything to think of how similar he was to his father, that maybe he was becoming his father. Sometimes Finwë’s voice would erupt, filled with venom. It was wielded so skillfully Fëanáro knew it was carefully crafted, knew that Finwë could use it anytime he chose. Sometimes he caught a glimmer of that venom in his own voice, lashing out with a fierceness that surprised him.

Fëanáro knew perfectly well what it was like to love someone and not be able to stand them at the same time. Fëanáro was sure that his father was not a bad person, just… confusing. Especially when he was younger, Fēanáro had been careful not to want anything too definitively around his father, because Finwë’s reaction, whether positive or negative, scared him almost the same. He felt like his entire life had been spent in hiding, that it was his nature to hide. He was slowly unlearning this, becoming braver with each passing year. He had always resented his father for how in his earliest years he felt that he had to hide. How he was ruled by fear. Barely knew how to speak and already guarded. But as the layers unfolded and the Way it Was became more and more distant, the more he thought that maybe he had gotten it all wrong. Was Finwë really at fault, or had it been Fëanáro who was to blame all along, by chance or ill timed occurrences building that image up around his father? Perhaps it was some combination of the two, so that the threads were almost impossible to untangle...

Fëanáro’s unabashed anger was complicated by how genuinely well intentioned Finwë was. He was the most caring person Fëanáro knew; doing anything for his sons’s well-being. He knew that Finwë loved him more than anything in this world, he could see it written all over his father’s face when they were together.  
(At the back of Fëanáro’s mind lurked another thought, “But not more than anyone in another.”)

Fëanáro got up at last. He looked out the window at the silvery light. By now it was almost morning, and he knew he would be tired the next day. But it seemed that sleep would not come. Fëanáro was glad he’d have something to do during the lonely months of break, as he knew that how he felt now was a precursor of how he always felt when there was too little that needed to be done.

Suddenly a shimmer of hope lit up in him, distant, but calling out. He couldn’t explain why, but he had the feeling that tomorrow would mark the beginning of a change, like warm light bathing him at last. Though the obsessing of his mind hadn’t truly ceased, his newfound comfort was enough that at last, he could sleep.

  
—————————————————————

Fëanáro woke up feeling much better. He had packed a few days before, and left home early in the morning.

Nerdanel arrived soon after he did. She was smiling so widely that Fëanáro couldn’t help but smile back. They started walking in the crisp morning air. It was still early enough that the sun was not oppressive, and they intended to make the most of this time. Yellow flowers were blossoming on the edge of the path, and they grew in numbers the farther Nerdanel and Fëanáro were from the city.

There was an unmistakable feeling of quiet that morning. Fëanáro felt that even his speech couldn’t quite break through it. It seemed to linger in the air, as if the whole world was holding its breath. And yet an excitement rippled through the quiet, or at least it felt that way to Fëanáro.  
Nerdanel didn’t seem to know what to say. She exchanged fragmented niceties with him, but nothing beyond that.

Fëanáro said at last, “I am really excited about exploring Valinor. I know we structured our plan around following the birds, and I am interested in that, but in truth, I am mostly interested in observing the ways people speak in different areas. I’ve never been far from Tirion, but I’ve read about all the variations. I find it so fascinating, that we can speak the same language, and yet have different ways of speaking that change the feeling entirely!”

“I agree,” said Nerdanel. “Although I imagine I haven’t thought about it half as much as you have!”

She paused for a moment. Then she said, almost in one breath:

“I have been researching the birds, however. I’m pretty sure the ones we’ve been watching are Sandhill cranes. They sleep standing on one foot. Can you imagine? No one knows exactly how far they travel, but there have been a few reports of them flying away entirely, towards the shadowed lands of our ancestors. There are not enough sightings to build true consensus, but the idea is certainly intriguing. I personally think it’s likely. After all, if you could fly beyond all borders, wouldn’t you? If you could see everything, be everything?

“In a heartbeat,” said Fëanáro.

  
—————————————————————

The path they had been walking on at last tapered off. Fëanáro checked the map (which he had painstakingly copied from a textbook,) and saw that the best route forward would be in the hills and dunes, not unlike where they had first met. They decided to sleep outside tonight, and do their best to make it to Alqualondë within the next couple of days.

As evening fell the world seemed to be even more vibrant. The colors only grew more striking in comparison with the darkening landscape. Nerdanel liked the starkness. She wanted to paint it, to capture it in fine lines and splashes of color. She tried to hold the image in her mind.

In that moment, she felt at peace, next to Fëanáro in the vast world.

The stars above were beautiful. However, theirs was a soft and muted beauty, dim, a far cry from the passionate fiery brightness spoken of in poems and songs. There weren’t even that many of them, not in comparison with the paintings that showed thousands, or the stories her grandfather had told her about stars dusting every inch of the sky. She had asked him about this once.

He had said it was because even in the darkest part of the day, Laurelin and Telperion are too bright.  
He had said, “The Trees, and our life in Valinor, is wonderful, and life giving and kind. It has gifted us with so much. Don’t you ever forget the beauty of living in comfort and safety, of being able to walk alone without fear, and of living in a society where joy is the top priority.  
But that doesn’t mean things weren’t lost in the reaching for it, and the unbridled passion of the stars was one of the many things that had to be obscured.  
There are pluses and minuses to everything, the only trick is weighing them responsibly. Still, doesn’t mean I don’t remember and cry sometimes, at the wonder of what used to be ours, of what you have never known.” That conversation was forever etched in her mind.

  
—————————————————————

They set up camp, blankets rolled up next to each other, and did their best to fall asleep. The insects were singing, one after the other, so that if you kept switching focus it almost seemed like some sort of elemental orchestra. Fëanáro had found you could do this with any sounds, if you tried. Switch your focus in a circular motion and even the loudest, most aggravating collection of noises can seem methodical. Still, there was something undeniably musical about the pattern of insect noises, something all their own. Fëanáro liked it. He preferred to have something to focus on as he fell asleep.

He woke up a few hours later, after tossing and turning. The air was cold. He looked up to see that the sky was entirely covered with dark grey clouds, so that he could see nothing beyond them. A bit of nervous tension set in. Fëanáro knew what that kind of cloud meant. Rain. And lots of it.

He thought it would be best to wake Nerdanel right away. Fëanáro gently tapped her forehead, until at last her arms stretched and she opened her eyes. A terrified expression passed through her face, and Fëanáro realized he shouldn’t have leaned in quite so close. It quickly turned to laughter, however, as she said, “What is going on?”

Despite Nerdanel’s quick recovery, Fëanáro felt bad about how scared he had made her. The image kept flashing through his mind. He said, “I’m worried a big storm is coming. We need to build a shelter. I’m sorry to wake you, but by morning it may be pouring and lightning, and that could pose a serious threat to us, especially since there’s not much else around. Not to mention just being unenjoyable, and ruining our supplies.”

Nerdanel nodded. “Okay. Where do we start?”

Fëanáro said. “I have an idea. Come see.”

They packed up their things and climbed down to the depression below the dune. Fëanáro started digging, and Nerdanel followed, until they had both a small dug out area and big piles of sand. It started to drizzle.

Fëanáro took the blanket and started pushing its edges into the ground. He piled sand on top, until it was securely in place. They did the same on the back and the side, leaving only one section open, and then crawled in through the front. They found they could barely fit lying down, let alone sit up. Nerdanel said this was unsafe in a lighting storm, so they both crawled back out and re-assessed.

By now the drizzle had grown to a steady stream, and the sand was starting to get wet. It became covered in dark spots that grew more concentrated with each passing second. Nerdanel smiled at this. She pulled the blanket out of the sand and said to Fëanor,

“Now that the sand is wet, we can sculpt it. We can build our own support!

“I don’t get it,” said Fëanáro.

“Have you ever built a sand castle?” asked Nerdanel.

“No.”

“Let me show you.”

They both sat down. Nerdanel taught Fëanáro how to mold the sand into little bricks that could be piled in order to make it more stable. Soon, they had three walls of sand about half their heights. The wind was picking up now, and the rain getting stronger. Fëanáro and Nerdanel again set up their shelter, this time draping the blanket (which was difficult as it was blowing haphazardly in the wind) over the sand walls before securing it in place. They climbed in, and squatted, looking through the opening at the now torrential rain.

Fëanáro said, “We made it just in time.” Nerdanel nodded.  
“Are you tired? I am feeling very awake.” said Fëanáro.

Nerdanel said, “I’m not tired either.

“The storm is kind of beautiful,” said Fëanáro. “At least from in here…”  
“There’s a strange sense of peace looking out at a rainstorm, don’t you think?”

“I do,” said Nerdanel. “Although I imagine it may start coming in here soon, and then it won’t be quite as peaceful.” At this she moved the bags to the back of the makeshift tent.

“Did you bring anything interesting?” said Fëanáro.

“I have some poetry,” said Nerdanel.  
She ruffled around in her bag. “Here’s one. It was handed to me by a street poet a few weeks ago, someone I haven’t seen before.”

Nerdanel began reading…

_Again my tender thought returns to you_  
_It tingles and it cries of wonder found_  
_And fills itself with passion born anew  
_ _My body is as water is- unbound_

_All it takes is one wry moment, a glance_  
_In your direction, rising to set me off_  
_Bubbling and bursting within, mischance  
_ _That I yet chase thus cannot seem to scoff_

_A longing I hold close as here I lay  
Though sharp it is more vibrant than the day_

Fëanáro said, “It speaks beautifully of desire. What… what do you think of it?”

“I like it,” said Nerdanel. It’s the type of poem that’s imperfect, and probably wouldn’t be printed in books, and yet depicts real emotion. It reminds me of when I was infatuated with one of the boys who worked for my father. It never went anywhere, so some might say it was wasted energy, but the feeling in me felt like an end in itself.”

Fëanáro said, “I can’t say I really understand, as I’ve never experienced that type of attraction. I don’t think I ever will.”

Nerdanel said, “What do you mean exactly?”

Fëanáro said, “I don’t… I’m not sexually attracted to other people. It’s not something that interests me, or that I’m drawn to.”

“Do you think you can fall in love? What does love mean to you?”

“I… think so? I guess to me love means forming deep emotional attachments with people. Having the type of relationship where we know each other intimately, where nothing is off limits and my whole self is there before them.”

“Do you want to get married?”

“Yes. I want the kind of partnership that comes with marriage.  
I also really want to have children, and for that reason alone I wish to get married. I’m not opposed to sexual activity for that purpose, it’s just not something I actively desire.”

A loud crack of thunder suddenly split the thick, pregnant air. The lightning was close. Nerdanel huddled closer to Fëanáro, and carefully pulled out the other blanket.

  
—————————————————————

A couple of hours later, the storm at last had passed.  
Fëanáro crawled outside. There was a freshness to the world that always seemed to come after rain. Nerdanel joined him. They could see the Pélori in the distance. They had previously decided to attempt to climb it because they thought it would be a good challenge. They unmade their shelter and started walking.

It was very windy at the edge of the mountain.  
After a few minutes, the path started getting steeper, so that the effort expended grew exponentially with each upward step. Suddenly, a boulder blocked their way. Fëanáro tried to lift himself up, looked for some sort of foothold, but he found none. Nerdanel had not been able to get up either, so they walked around the boulder into the woods.

The trees surrounded them. There was something magical about being in a forest. It was quiet, and yet the sounds of birds could be heard, pecking at the dirt for worms. Worms who had wriggled to the surface and soaked up the wetness, only to be swallowed.

There was a darkness in the trees too, something that could not quite be named. It was always there and yet never rose to the front of the mind.  
Fëanáro saw a deer running in the distance, and was momentarily distracted from any previous thoughts by it’s speed. It raced across the terrain, bumping into nothing and disappearing soon. Nerdanel had to remind him to keep moving. They found some smaller boulders, ones that could more easily be scaled, that seemed to lead up towards their previous path. Fëanáro climbed slowly, sitting for stability, using his arms to inch up, never breaking contact with the stone.

By the time they got to the top of the mountain, Fëanáro was exhausted. The combination of a lack of sleep and the uphill climb had left him sweaty, sore and in a bit of a stupor. He and Nerdanel sat down, not even bothering to look at the view. They fell asleep there, on a rock near the summit.

Nerdanel snuggled in with Fëanáro, feeling cushioned by a strange excitement as she drifted off.

  
—————————————————————

They awoke in the heat of the day. After eating some of the food they had packed, they started down the mountain towards Alqualondë.

As they reached the edge of the city, they started smelling more and more mint. Soon Nerdanel found the source; there were hundreds of mint bushes planted all around the border. Each was bursting with flowers that looked like tiny, bushy animal tails. When she picked one up, it easily crumbled and left her hand smelling of mint.

They continued into the city, which was built almost entirely of stone. Nerdanel wasn’t sure why this was, but Fëanáro thought it must be to protect from water damage. They decided to walk to the market, both to get food and to observe people, and to stay at a hotel for the night.

All sorts of birds were flying around Alqualondë. Mostly gulls, but Nerdanel occasionally saw a crane or two peeking into the city. She saw people feeding them, along with all the other birds. There was birdseed spilled nearly everywhere she looked.

By the time they got to the market it was close to closing time. There were still people out, but the stalls were somewhat sparse and much of the food was gone. Fëanáro listened intently to the people around him while Nerdanel went to get food.

There was variety to the Alqualondëian’s languaging, more so than in Tirion. Many spoke Quenya, but almost as many spoke Telerin. He even heard dialogue that was mainly in Quenya, but sprinkled with Telerin!

The thing he noticed the most, after listening for a few minutes, was how relaxed their speech was. People were mostly speaking with the front of the mouth, loosely, not in the tight and careful way Fëanáro was used to hearing. There was something light in their voices, almost like it was floating blind down a river. It wasn’t quite within their control, and yet he got the feeling they didn’t want it to be.

Nerdanel came back with plates of food. She motioned Fëanáro over to a table nearby. They sat down, and began to eat. It was delicious, lemony and mildly seasoned and yet just right, so that the flavor came through perfectly. Fëanáro told Nerdanel what he had observed, and then asked to borrow her notebook, so he could write it down.

  
—————————————————————

They went to the beach the next day.  
Nerdanel wanted to find the little clams that peek out after the water recedes. She spent much of the time watching them, while Fëanáro dove into the water. It was still high from the recent rain. He loved the feeling of swimming out and then down, down, down. He would stay lying on the bottom, looking up through the sun-shafted green, until the pressure became too much to take.

—————————————————————

After drying, Nerdanel and Fëanáro set off again. Soon, they had the sea on one side and a row of mountains on the other. It created a strange sort of symmetry. A variety of birds flew with them, but they were too high up to ascertain what kind. Nonetheless, they were an encouragement that Nerdanel and Fëanáro were going the right way.

Eventually the sand faded away in exchange for grass along a rocky outcropping. It was still hot, but the wind off the sea created such a cooling breeze that Nerdanel didn’t mind. She walked with her face pointed upward, looking ahead with her arms spread out to feel the wind. Fëanáro walked beside her. He was watching the clouds for any hint of another thunderstorm approaching, but thankfully found none. He was hoping that they could walk through at least some of the night, as they had slept in the day before. The wind slowed down, and Nerdanel brought her arms down. Fëanáro moved closer to her.

He said, “Sometimes I get a feeling of just being stuck, of not going anywhere. Sometimes I feel like I’m running out of time, and a sort of desperation overtakes me. I accomplish things in a frenzy, but it is motivated by an underlying horror. I know it’s completely ridiculous because I have all the time in the world… but I can’t help it. I hate the feeling of being in stasis. I don’t know why I’m talking about this now. I guess I sort of felt it earlier by the ocean so it just made me think.”

“I’m not sure I understand. Sometimes I have almost the opposite feeling though, of being overwhelmed by the amount of time stretching out ahead of me and afraid, afraid of growing weary, of doing things too fast and then there being nothing left, afraid of nothing being enough anymore.”

Fëanáro said, in a gust, “I have never felt like anything was enough. It’s always nagging at me, no matter what I do.”

They fell silent.

  
—————————————————————

In the middle of the night they arrived at a yellowy grove of trees. It seemed as suitable a resting place as any, so they settled down to sleep. Little lilac lights seemed to twinkle out of the corner of Nerdanel’s eye, but she couldn’t tell if they were real or just her mind winding down.

Fëanáro woke up first, and so he paced impatiently for a few minutes, before forcing himself to sit. He would not allow himself to disturb Nerdanel again.He started absentmindedly building veins of dirt around the base of a tree.

When Nerdanel got up, she came to join him. She said, “What are you doing?”

“Oh, nothing really.” said Fëanáro with an edge in his voice.

Nerdanel said, “Groves are sacred, you know. Or at least… they were. Before we knew of the Valar, before religion was placed in their hands, we worshipped The Eternal ourselves under open skies.1

“We should do that now,” said Fëanáro, voice suddenly soft.  
Hardening again in sudden thought, he said, “I care little for the Valar. They refuse to bring my mother back.

They stood and soaked up the feeling of the place, trying to fill every ounce of their bodies with it. They stood together, but in separate worlds, or at least attempting to be so. Eventually Fëanáro gave up and tried to meld into Nerdanel instead. They raised their gratitude all around, spreading on the wind and in the droplets of light. Fëanáro pulled from deep within himself, and was surprised to find he could feel it, deep and central, as tangible as the ground, spilling out.

When they were finished, Fëanáro and Nerdanel ran in joyous circles around the grove, like little kids at play. It felt like an appropriate way to transition. In running, Fëanáro didn’t feel childish. Only exhilarated, and more sure of himself than he had felt in a long time.

  
—————————————————————

The mountains had started to wander from their perfect line, scattering around Fëanáro and Nerdanel’s feet. No sooner than the mountains stopped being a constant but avoidable landmark, Nerdanel noticed signs of elvish life. She saw plants that looked cultivated, and paths carved into the earth. She even saw a piece of discarded glass, sticking out of a bush uphill. This was unexpected, as she had never heard of anyone living in this area. She and Fëanáro were curious enough to take a break from their previous direction, and follow one of the paths. They were met by a woman. She had what appeared to be short hair peeking out of a babushka, Telerin coloring, and big fluffy boots. She spoke to Fëanáro and Nerdanel in choppy, clear-cut Quenya.

“What are you doing here?”

“I suppose she can tell we are Noldorin,” Nerdanel whispered to Fëanáro.

“We are traveling,” said Nerdanel. “Where are we? I did not realize there was civilization this far north.”

The woman responded, with a laugh. “It’s not exactly ‘civilization’. We have a small village here, outside the borders of Valinor. Come, you can join us for the night. Although I suspect my sister won’t be none too happy about taking in strangers…” she muttered to herself.

Nerdanel and Fëanáro entered the village. Small was right! It couldn’t have contained more than twenty houses, at least as far as Fëanáro could see. They were placed haphazardly on the edges of mountains, and in the mini-valleys beneath.

The woman introduced herself as Lepempe, saying it was a childhood nickname, (coming from how she would copy her sibling’s words), that had stuck. There were others sitting out on the grass, who greeted them as they passed.

They sat down on Lepempe’s porch, watching the late afternoon unfold around them, each action somehow more noticeable for their lack.  
Nerdanel was strangely relaxed in this unfamiliar place. It felt within her grasp, and at the same time beyond it. She liked the feeling.

Fëanáro said, “How long have you lived here?”

“Since I was born,” said Lepempe.  
“My parents wanted to get away from the city, and form their own world. They took like-minded folks with them, and others just found their way, I guess. It takes some courage to live without any protection or support. Except what you make and the ones inherent to the land, of course. But it’s peaceful here. Where are you from?”

“Tirion,” Nerdanel and Fëanáro responded at the same time. Lepempe laughed again at this. She seemed awfully cheerful. Fëanáro smiled in return.

Nerdanel looked around with a pensive expression. “How do you get food?” she asked.

“We keep goats, and cultivate useful plants. We are also all taught to find the edible plants and animals of the mountains.  
We eat together, and everyone shares their resources. That way no one goes hungry unless everyone does.

“Does it work?” asked Nerdanel.

Lepempe slowly grew a sideways grin. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but… my sister and I have a secret mancala set that’s just our own. We’ve hidden it since childhood and sometimes we sneak out together. It has made some of my most precious memories. But I also love how close we all are, and not just my immediate family. We know each other intimately and thus can work as a more cohesive unit. Truthfully, I’m not sure what I think of our system here. It has never failed horribly (as far as I know), but I’m not sure it really succeeded either. After all, I would bet most of us are breaking it in some way. But maybe it’s not supposed to be completely followed?

Nerdanel and Fëanáro suddenly heard a rustling. A woman who must have been Lepempë’s sister appeared, carrying cut pieces of wood.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Travelers,” said Fëanáro. “Your sister said we could stay for the night.”

“Lepempe!” the woman cried, exasperated. “What are you doing?”

“Relax, Alata. They’re real nice, and besides, it’s only for the night. Come in.” She gestured towards the door. Nerdanel and Fëanáro walked single file into the house, followed by Lepempë and Alata.

It was darker inside, lit only by three curtain covered windows. Alata set her wood down by the fireplace, and got to work cooking food. She asked Fëanáro and Nerdanel to help.  
The next day, they said their goodbyes and walked down the pathway out of Lepempë’s village, continuing forward.

  
—————————————————————

At last, Nerdanel and Fëanáro were close to the edge of Aman. It was darker here, as though constantly in early twilight. It was colder too. The landscape had gotten colder and darker so gradually that Fëanáro had barely noticed, until all of a sudden it was unmistakable. “It is strange how that happens,” thought Fëanáro.

He could see the Helcaraxë in the distance. It crackled and shifted every few moments. He could almost see the clouds of snow that must have been rising everywhere. Fëanáro shivered. He turned to Nerdanel. She was wandering, looking in all directions for the cranes. “I hope we didn’t come at the wrong time!” she cried. “I didn’t even think about that!”

Fëanáro said, “Let’s go to the water’s edge. If you are right and they really do fly to Beleriand, that’s where we’d find them.”

The ocean was frosted over at the edge, with a layer of ice thick enough that Nerdanel could stand on it. But farther out, if she squinted, she could see waves crashing. Fëanáro stepped onto the frozen ocean. He reached out to her to steady himself. Besides, he liked the feeling of Nerdanel around him. She more than made up for the lack of warmth.

  
—————————————————————

The birds never came, though Fëanáro and Nerdanel waited through the night. Nerdanel realized the birds were already gone.

She could do nothing! They were much, much too far out of grasp. She started to cry, mild, though her mind was battered with disappointment.

Like a passing storm, the feeling was gone. Her tears stilled. She was apathetically calm. She walked over to Fëanáro, who was now sitting on the beach, looking away towards the forest.

She knew it was childish, to have gotten so upset. “No!” she intercut in her head. “Don’t let yourself do this...this… dimming of emotions!” She began to cry all over again. She knew the reaction was too strong for the cause, but she didn’t care. She knew it was only the scale finally tipping, on something that had been simmering for ages. Everyone saw her as someone who lived vividly, and she certainly tried to. She put so much effort into being aware and alive, into noticing every detail. She had to! Who knew what could slip away?

But she knew life would never be as vivid as it had been when she was younger. The loss of it stung bitterly in her throat, more than anything she had lost before. It was as though everything was covered in a layer of emptiness, of dust.

Fëanáro looked into her eyes. He didn’t know what she was thinking about, but he knew her expression. He had never been good at comfort, but he sat next to her and awkwardly tried to touch her upper back. Nerdanel didn’t turn away.

“Fëanáro.” she thought reverently. He made her feel more alive than she had in a long time. He filled her with a pure joy, unlike anything she had ever known. Maybe his presence was the start of another watershed, a better one.

She couldn’t pinpoint the moment her world had grown gray. But she remembered the year when everything changed, when her worldview and identity had been decimated. She remembered the consequences that came after. The changes had been so subtle she hadn’t realized they were becoming a landslide. It was the only truly neutral experience she could remember. Though she didn’t always want to admit it, trying to parse the Change into categories of good or bad was both impossible and irrelevant. It had been, and the important thing about it was that she could never go back. All that was left was to pick up the pieces and keep going.

She was sure she had gotten the details wrong. After all, she knew perfectly well that we are constantly telling stories about our lives. To others, but most especially to ourselves. It was so easy to frame things in a certain way, and to not even realize you were doing it.  
Maybe the loss in her perception wasn’t real, wasn’t as dramatic and daunting as it seemed, and maybe it was. Maybe there was no such thing as fooling herself, as the only truth about it was whatever was her current emotion, and what was real was flowing.

And right now she wanted to stop fixating and just be. She knew it was far from an instant solution, but she didn’t care. She was exhausted of obsessing, and felt that she had to let it go. To get it in her head that childhood was over, and so was the ease that came with it. “It was more than just ease!” piped a voice in her head. “I know.” she responded sadly.

There had been moments, now that she thought about it, since the Change, many moments of awareness. Of wonder. And maybe they’d never be more than that. Moments. And maybe they would. But she knew Fëanáro’s presence helped her to create more of them, to stretch them out around her. She knew he felt it too. She knew she could keep creating, and that she would go on, not holding back.

She said aloud, voice still shaky, more to herself than to him; “I am ready for wherever I’m headed.”

“So am I.” he responded.

Together, they started towards home.

**Author's Note:**

> These are for the footnote1  
(I haven’t figured out how to link yet...)  
Part 1: Religion being in the hands of the Valar is inspired by Letters: “The High Elves were exiles from the Blessed Realm of the Gods (after their own particular Elvish fall) and they had no ‘religion’ (or religious practices, rather) for _those had been in the hands of the gods, praising and adoring Eru ‘the One,’ Ilúvatar the father of All on the Mt. of Aman._ (emphasis my own)  
I continued with this idea that perhaps before they knew of the Valar, elves _did_ have religious practices of their own...  
Part 2: “The solemn seclusion of a forest grove seems to primitive man to be a place of worship set apart by Nature, and these groves appear to have been the only and earliest temples.”  
-The Forest in Folklore and Mythology by Alexander Porteous  
(I highly recommend this book, it has tons of interesting info! Strange how the even the most seemingly unrelated things you do while in the process of writing end up seeping in and becoming important...)


End file.
